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| Movie Name : |
Bad Times at the El Royale
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| Cinema Type : |
Hollywood
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| Release Date : |
23-Nov-2018( 5 years, 358 days ago)
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| Directed By : |
Drew Goddard |
| Production House : |
Drew Goddard,Jeremy Latcham |
| Genre : |
Mystery |
| Lead Role : |
Chris Hemsworth, Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson
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Rating:3/5
The movie opens with a teasing set piece that’s well executed and promising. A shot of a room in a relatively upscale motor hotel. A man in a trenchcoat with a bloodied arm enters, carrying duffel bags. In a series of jump-cut shots all from the same camera position we see the man move all the furniture to one end of the room, roll up the carpet, pull up the floorboards, leave the duffel bag under the floor, put the room back together again, and wait. Another man arrive and kills the poor fellow who buried the bag. Apparently this fellow is unaware of what the now dead guy has been up to. A title card says “Ten Years Later” and it’s a sunny day and we know that whatever’s in that duffel bag is still under the floor at what we now know to be the El Royale.
A novel feature of the place is discussed by the first two characters we meet, Jeff Bridges’ Father Daniel Flynn and Cynthia Erivo’s Darlene Sweet. The lodging is built on top of the border between Nevada and California, and the hotel rooms are especially styled for each side. The Nevada side is the one with a casino, although the license for this one has expired. The place has seen better days. As borne out by the fact that once Darlene and Daniel go inside to check in, they’re met by an obnoxiously garrulous appliance salesman named Laramie who’s been cooling his heels in the lobby while no staff members manifest themselves.
Played by an enjoyably unctuous Jon Hamm, Laramie gives a spiel—drenched in a very inauthentic Biloxi accent—until Darlene’s sharp knock on an employees-only door rouses the somnolent bellboy Miles (Lewis Pullman) who flies into an odd panic when he sees a priest trying to check in. The question of why, and other questions, go by the wayside, drowned out by a loud automobile pulling into the lodge’s lot, motored by a very surly Dakota Johnson, who signs the log book with a two-word epithet.